


Thunderstorm

by Brezifus



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Disobeying Orders, F/M, Playful Spats, Pre-Canon, Teasing, tagging this is a nightmare it is quite generic you see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27022120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brezifus/pseuds/Brezifus
Summary: Aeris finds her way to the top of the walls around Midgar in time to watch a thunderstorm roll in. Tseng attempts to bring her back down, but she won't give him the satisfaction of a mission complete without teasing him for being worried.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tseng
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Thunderstorm

**Author's Note:**

> bruh college is taking up all my brain cells so while i'm still working on speaking to flowers, it's just going slowly because following chapters and plot while constantly being interrupted by school things makes things jumbled and in need of more edits than usual.
> 
> that said, i have so much tserith juice in me i need to get some of it out to maintain equilibrium. oneshots for now...i guess!
> 
> i didn't tag for it because it's not what the fic is about whatsoever, but Aeris's position on the wall does bring some worries about suicide/jumping forward, and there's references to other people having done that before.

For a second, she saw great gray sheets dip from the clouds like they were merely tossing a blanket on the barren land. The distant roar was expected yet unfamiliar; different than the metallic drone of rain on the upper plates that overtook the air of the slums.

It filled Aeris with excitement and wonder, so she perched herself on the last safety railing to look out over the deadened land.

Only in the gaps of the church roof had she ever seen clouds so dark and blue in color, but never had she imagined they would stand so tall and menacing in the sky. They were great giants of rain and lightning, roiling and roaring over the lifeless soil. Dust became mud at their commanding presence, crevices and canyons flooded with dark, opaque water. Soon, the downpour reached Midgar, the first messengers of rain dropping fat and heavy on Aeris’s dwarfed form. In the blink of an eye the few became many, and Aeris stood drenched atop the walls of the metal city.

Lightning cracked the sky open. Wind pushed the rain in waves. Thunder rattled her ribcage. Rain poured so hard she felt as though she were underwater. She gazed at the plain, quite literally soaking up every detail for herself instead of letting the memories of the Planet speak for her. Her fingers numbed in the rain though it wasn’t even particularly cold. Her hair felt heavy and plastered to her face. Aeris tipped her face to the sky as if to hold a conversation with the clouds.

A muffled _fwump_ interrupted the drone of the rain against the upper plates, and a dark shape exited out onto the wall from a maintenance shaft. She had not been so practical to get up here, having used clever but dangerous techniques across all sorts of debris left behind by the partial collapse of Sector 6. The bite from the threaded cables she clung to still stung the palms of her hands, and she instinctively closed her fists over them as she turned to see Tseng.

He looked calm despite his umbrella’s lack of confidence against the weather. There was the flash of concern on his face, common in her younger years but now rare. The arches of her feet were slotted neatly into the railing, her abdomen pressed to it as secure as she could be while being precarious at the same time. Perhaps he had feared for a moment that she would jump, as many had before. Tseng knew her better than to truly believe that, but the doubt was still present.

“Elmyra asked me to find you,” he said with nary a greeting.

Two more rarities from him: first, that her mother would ask _him_ anything in relation to Aeris’s safety unless she was truly worried, and second that he referred to her as _Elmyra_. Tseng had never said it, but Aeris had quietly noted that he only called her by her first name when his thoughts were wrapped up in the past. It was his subtle, secret little way to acknowledge that Elmyra was not nor was never going to be her birth mother. It was not born out of a lack of respect for the woman. Rather, it was a soft gesture of acknowledgment for what Aeris had been through; the absolute least he could do in his position.

Perhaps he really did worry she would jump. She looked down at him from her perch, barely seeing his brows from beneath the black of the umbrella. The mark on his forehead was bisected in partial obscurity. His eyes, thankfully, were not.

“I’ll come home when I want,” Aeris responded.

Tseng smirked, but it didn’t reach his eyes—eyes that were staring intently at her, “She wanted me to bring you home.”

“Liar.” she dismissed. Tseng did not react. Admitting it was a lie would be admitting that he simply wanted her to return home; saying that it was true flew in the face of how much Elmyra trusted her daughter. Aeris had no doubt that she had sent Tseng to find her, but bringing her back was a very different request.

A strong gust of wind buffeted hard rain against the wall and Aeris clamped her grip on the railing. Tseng’s stance shifted from being at wary attention to looking like he was preparing himself to pounce. If need be.

“At _least_ come down,” Tseng requested, plainly but with enough force to let her know he meant it.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Aeris retorted.

“No…but I can ask.” he admitted.

Aeris looked at him. The final rarity. A strange softness had touched his voice, careful but sincere. His eyes mirrored his voice, even though they were just as muffled by the storm’s presence. She held his gaze for a moment, watching as he lifted his free hand to offer it.

“Are you worried, Tseng?”

“You’re not supposed to be on the walls,” he deflected, but no hint of lecture was present. He knew that she knew her place—because she constantly broke the boundaries as she wished. For better or worse.

“Sometimes people use a simple _yes_ or _no_ to respond to a question,” she teased in turn. Sliding one foot away from the railing, she placed her hand in his and jumped down, “Don’t worry, I have you figured out.”

“Oh?” he quirked an eyebrow. Aeris stared back at him, lips curling. She raised her hand to them, making Tseng blink in shock. Then Aeris laughed—he had not realized that he hadn’t let go of her hand when he should’ve. Giving him a teasing squeeze (as jerking away would’ve only made his transgression that more obvious) she let go of him and twirled in the downpour. The upper plate spread before her, lights gleaming in the darkness of the storm. Most lights were yellowed or white, but the omnipresent mako-green set an oppressive undertone to the colors of the city. The blue of the clouds, however, blended beautifully with the green reflecting off the raindrops. Once more she felt underwater, with a sun glimmering somewhere far above the dark surface. Tseng watched her as he usually did, quiet, dutiful, observant. Her shoes squelched with rainwater, her hair blotted her vision, her dress clung to her skin in ways that must’ve made him squirm, and she was grinning ear to ear.

“I do,” she declared, “It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone you were worried about me,”

Tseng regarded her with narrowed eyes, far too familiar with her games to play as he usually did, “Ashamed to gossip with others, are we?”

Her eyes flashed, thrilled and invigorated at how their sparring had evolved over the years, “Wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings, Tseng,”

“What feelings?” he asked, low, level, and unamused.

Her grin turned dark and conniving. She did not move quick, nor was she slow. She was simply casual save for the impishness of her expression as she approached him. Parting from the rain to tuck under the umbrella, she reached on her tiptoes and kissed him in a motion as fluid as the water that surrounded them.

Tseng stood there, stunned. Or perhaps his reaction had been mulled by how the storm seemed to wrap around them, shielding them from prying eyes or thoughts of duties beyond the reach of the umbrella. Aeris wouldn’t say he fell into the kiss, but he certainly moved. However, she could hardly blame him—she was demanding and fierce. The sweet yet full kiss she had planted on his lips soon morphed into something fervent as she placed a hand on his cheek and raked her nails at the hair around his ear. Anything he tried to say she muffled as her mouth held him where she wanted him. If he was spending his day reminiscing about the past, then he certainly wasn’t going to be thinking about the present, and she was counting on that to work in her favor.

As the tension in Tseng’s shoulders relaxed she knew it had, and her smile became part of the kiss.

Then, just as fluidly, she pulled away, nipping at his lower lip as she expertly slid the umbrella from his loosened grip. Tseng stood in astonishment then shock as torrential rain soaked him on the spot. Aeris flitted several paces away, twirling the black umbrella behind her just enough that she wasn’t even using the damn thing properly. She grinned to tell him that she knew it, too.

“ _I’m_ not the one who’s ashamed,” she said very pointedly. Tseng could only stare at her, hands parting the air around the space she had just occupied.

He had nothing to say.

Aeris walked away from him along the wall with a bounce in her step, “Fine, I’ll come down,” she relented, turning just enough so he could see her expression, “But I don’t want to go home just yet,”

“No?” Tseng regained himself and put his arms at his side, “Haven’t had enough fun?”

Her grin was impish in a way that felt as natural as the rain falling. Striding to her, Tseng took hold of the umbrella.

“Give this back, and I’ll leave you be,” he offered. Tseng tugged on it but she held fast, a fire sparking in her eyes in the downpour.

“You’ll leave a poor girl alone in the rain without an umbrella? You _should_ be ashamed, Tseng!” she admonished, wicked in her teasing.

“So long as you have that, I will have to follow,” he stated simply. Aeris gave a mock-gasp of horror and hurt.

“You don’t trust me with it?”

“Absolutely not.”

She twirled it, the spokes kicking more water at him though he was at this point thoroughly drenched. Between the two of them, Aeris wondered whose hair would dry the fastest, especially if they were too distracted to dry it properly.

Tseng tugged again. This time she let the umbrella rise so he could finally duck under it behind her, though her hands still held it firmly.

“Where to?” she asked, clearly leading the two of them by authority of the umbrella. Tseng responded, the baritone of his voice near her ear so acutely it made the rain soft and the thunder weak.

“Anywhere within these walls,” he said, firm but gentle. Professional but intimate.

Aeris smirked, “Someday, Tseng, that will have to change.”


End file.
